Unitarian Universalist Church of Jackson

NUUSLETTER

 A Newsletter for our Members and Friends

JULY 2008 - Web Edition

Love is the spirit of this church, and service is our law.

To dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another.

This is our covenant

 

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

 

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

 

Welcome and attend them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture, still,

treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

 

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

 

Welcome difficulty.

Learn the alchemy True Human Beings know:

the moment you accept what troubles you've been given,

the door opens.

 

Welcome difficulty as a familiar comrade.

Joke with torment brought by a Friend.

 

Sorrows are the rags of old clothes

and jackets that serve to cover,

and then are taken off.

 

That undressing,

and the beautiful body underneath,

is the sweetness that comes after grief.

 

~ Rumi ~

 

This place known to us as UUCJ is a guest house and we bring to it all of our experiences, good and ill fortune.  How we welcome these experiences into our guest house determines the direction we are to turn in the future.  I am personally grateful for the experiences I have had here.  I believe that we have grown during our journey together.  I look forward to hearing how the journey of this place unfolds.  You have begun this past year to sense more fully your place in this community.  Let that sense guide you forward.

My last sermon with y’all will be the third Sunday of July.  It is about how we say good bye.  It too fits into our guest house.  How we attend to our good byes is important to how we move forward when loved ones are now part of our past and not our present.  For us, our relationship isn’t entirely ending but rather changing.  The board of UUCJ has approved the participation in what I hope will be an exciting and rewarding program.  I will be developing with the good folks at Tuscaloosa , AL , a DVD series of sermons and Adult Religious Education topics that you will be able to see either during a worship service or during Adult Forum.  I will also be coming next year for a long weekend to offer a workshop; topic and format to be determined and a guest pulpit appearance on a Sunday.  

May the grace of the journey give you strength and fill your days with joy.

Blessings, Fred

 

  President's Corner

 

Our congregation has been talking for years (at least the 25 years I have been a member) about growing.  We have talked in terms of attracting new members, buying additional property, moving, expanding our sanctuary building to be more inviting to more people, attracting new families to grow our RE program, growing our budget, calling a full-time minister or a part-time minister, and contracting with consulting ministers.  We have done some or all of these things at one time or another with the exception of actually adding property or moving.   

More recently, we have begun to talk in terms of growing our ministry to one another and to the larger community by examining what work needs doing and how we can do it.  The focus of these discussions has not been about adding numbers and property but rather about identifying the work that we want to do and ought to do.

We have for a long while reached out to the larger community by our support of Stewpot through the Sunday offerings of the RE students, our support of young men in the detention center with soap and underwear, our support of Fair Trade coffee, tea, and nuts, by recycling our magazines to medical centers, by recycling to our compost pile and offering its use to members and friends, by recycling our paper and plastics and offering members and friends use of this opportunity, by participating in the interfaith Peace House project of Habitat for Humanity.  We offer the use of our building to an AA group, and more recently to community classes in various spiritual practices. 

We have recently embarked on training for the OWL program in order to offer it to our own RE students and we are in discussions with other community agencies to offer it to their constituencies.  We have identified  transportation as a possible ministry to our own congregation  and perhaps to a larger community — we know the need is there.

We will participate with all of the UU congregations in Mississippi during the coming year in a Mid-South District project to maintain a visible UU ministerial presence in our State.  Rev. Hammond will, from his new home bases in Tuscaloosa and Our Home, continue to visit the Mississippi congregations to offer workshops, DVDs of sermons and forum topics, and his very popular blog. 

We will also begin participation in a Mid-South District program called UP, which is designed for congregations of 70 or fewer members with less than full-time ministers.  The purpose of this program is to explore avenues and resources for small congregations to grow in mission, vision, and ministry, and not necessarily in numbers and property.  Each Mid-South District congregation will have a team of three members to participate in this multi-media program and to bring back to the congregation possibilities for our growth in vision, mission, and ministry.

We certainly want to continue to think about our growth in terms of attracting new folks and making our physical environment as welcoming as possible.   But perhaps our best growth comes from growing the liberal spirit within our congregation and the larger community by doing the work that needs doing.  How can we best do that?

Gwen Combs

 

From The Desk of the DRE

 

Groups, Meetings, and Announcements
 

*  A fresh supply of coffees, nuts, and dried fruits are for sale in the kitchen. Ummm.

*  BOOKS, MUSIC, MOVIES!  Take advantage of our summer fund raiser.  New arrivals each Sunday. And don’t forget to clean out your bookcases, cabinets, closets and tabletops.  Bring the items that you no longer use or need for our sale.  That will leave room for the great bargains you will discover in the church’s foyer (prices range from 50¢ to a couple of bucks).  Check out our selections between the forum and the worship service.

*   Lelon Thompson, minister of music at Wells Church , and UUCJ member Monique Champagne will be continuing their Saturday group sessions and classes this month. Details are included in the upcoming events list below.  Additional information is available at the UUCJ office.

*   Gwen Combs reminds all of us to:

1. Be sure after using the sanctuary or church building that the thermostat is returned to the default 78 degrees.  Several folks who have been at the church during the week on errands have found the thermostat at 70, which is not necessary for an empty building, raises our cooling bill unnecessarily, and wastes electricity.

2. Give Brian Heffner, VP Buildings and Grounds, a call when things are going to be attached to the walls, inside or out.  He is most helpful with advice about how best to attach things so as not to damage paint, shingles, etc.  Also, please let Brian know if anything is out of order or amiss on the church campus so that he can address it.   

 

Upcoming Events

Saturday, July 5,  The Power of Intent group session will be lead by Monique Champagne from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon (cost $10/person). 

Saturday, July 12,  The Power of Intent group session will be lead by Monique Champagne from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon (cost $10/person). 

Saturday, July 19,  The Power of Intent group session will be lead by Lelon Thompson from 10:00 am to 10:45 am (cost $5/person).  Lelon will then facilitate the class Messages From the Light  -- channeled group and individual messages -- from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm (cost $5/person).

Sunday, July 20, Third Sunday Potluck Lunch immediately following the worship service:  Bring a dish to share for this farewell meal honoring Fred, who is concluding his service as our consulting minister.

July 25, 6:00 pm,  Board of Trustees meeting to 7:00 pm.

Friday, July 25 at 7:00 pm: 4th Friday Film Night  Street Fight (82 min). The gloves come off in Marshall Curry's Oscar-nominated documentary chronicling the 2002 mayoral race in Newark , New Jersey . Street Fight captures this bare-knuckle campaign battle with a rugged take on how democracy, power, and race play out in urban American politics.  Join us at UUCJ for this inspiring film with discussion to follow. For more information contact Stacy Callender.

Saturday, July 26,  The Power of Intent group session will be lead by Lelon Thompson from 10:00 am to 10:45 am (cost $5/person).  Lelon will then facilitate the class Developing Your Intuition  from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm (cost $5/person).  

October 15-19, 2008, Unitarian Universalist Womenspirit Institute (& Gathering) at The Mountain Retreat and Learning Centers , Highlands , NC for a joy-full, power-full and spirit-filled retreat.  Learn the many ways you can Listen for the Sacred all around you.  Learn the many ways you can Answer the Call.  Green your spirit and the earth through experiential workshops, participatory worship, networking with like-minded women, and just plain fun.  For more information visit www.uuwomenspirit.org.

 

Deadline for submissions to the August UUCJ NUUSletter: July 18. Please send your submissions to NUUSletter@uujackson.org.